Speeding Up Tien Chi Spring and Autumn ?!

[Arralen]

I'm looking into possibilities to strenghten S&A and make it a tad faster to start, and maybe reduce the MM a bit

So far, I have identified the following problems:

1) you start with Turmoil-1, but your better mages are rather expensive

2) your only standard commander is a chariot, leader/gold ratio is even worse, and they tend to get swarmed as soon as they start to trample the enemy. Even worse, one of T'Cs strength are archers and Fire Demons: Hits on any chariot moving through enemies ranks 100% guaranteed.

3) Heavenly Demons are a great asset, but cost too much mage-time, especially the Fire Demons which need either a Celestial Master or a very lucky Master Of The Way with fire-1 from random ..

4) Low-Level Astral Skills makes your mages Duel-fodder. Again you have to hope for a lucky draw on a Master Of Five Elements to get somewhat decent battle magic.

5) .. all those "lucky draws" mean you are spending time/turns and gold on buying mages, of which only 1/5 or so are really usable. And those are always the Last to show up.

6) While the starting gem income from the Sping and Autumn Gate is quite nice (1 fire, 2 water, 1 astral, 1 death), it's barely enough to let you summon 1 Demon/turn, and 15 spirits/4 turns (which need exactly 1 fight to get whacked). Thus you'll start conquering the world at turn 4 with 15 spirits and 2 river/fire demons each .. even when boosted with all the archers and medium inf you can afford it's just enough against Lvl-7 indies.


And there isn't much one can do about it:

• Turmoil-1 and Magic-1 is thematic in a very literal sense.
• Spell modding isn't there, so it's impossible to change the spells to summon 2 or more demons. No possible MM reduction and making them cheaper mage-time-wise.
• Gold needs boost income, but is very much fixed due to turmoil.

Only after some time it dawned to me, that simplest solution would be to add a site to the T'C starting prov which gives additional fire gems, which could either be used for a)speeding up the summoning, b) forging some items or c) conVersion to gold.

Looking through the list I found the Alchemists Guild, which seems to fit quite nice (1 earth, 1 fire). Even the alchemists IMHO is "in theme" for the feudal S&A, with magic, superstition and turmoil all across the land.

What do you think - would S&A be over-powered this way ?

[Boron]

don't change tien chi s&a they are already good .

i wouldn't use my nobles first frontline . they just get killed .

you need to gamble furthermore .
scales : turmoil 3 , sloth 3 , cold 3 , death 3 , magic 3 , luck 3 .
castle : watch tower
pretender : vq
this way you can e.g. take :
a3 , w 2 , e3 , d6 , b3
dominion 8

the vq either takes 1 prov / turn from turn 5 on or 1 prov / 2 turns + sitesearch the prov . with these picks she finds something like 50% .

if you just build the archers + give them a few water / fire demons they can take out the weaker indeps and at least conquer 1 province every 2 turns to from turn 5 on .

the luck is really a big gamble but you will quite often get the needed + gold just when you need it .
and if you get a +water or +fire gems event in the first 5 turns that are some additional fire / water demons .

you are somewhat dependent from luck but with turmoil 3 + luck 3 you get really many events and most are good .

if you need money you can even pillage a province since you only need money for your mages and almost not for national troops .
sure with these "horror" scales you have something about 1/3 of the income of one with order 3 productivity 3 growths 3 but in early game luck compensates .
lategame you have only to spend money on temples , castles + mages .

with magic 3 you research fast enough and should manage a top 5 position in research at least .

so what not to like ?
you even can bloodhunt with your random blood picks .
if you take water 3 on your vq she can summon :
ice devils and vampire lords .
if you don't get early some lucky random blood picks don't research blood but conjuration .
with d6 your vq needs only 1 empower item to summon tartarians and can summon the whole rest without empower .
you can lower d6 on your vq to d4 or 5 and instead take water 3 + earth 4 .

that way you can focus on blood heavyly and summon father illearth , vampire lords , the ice devils .

so construction , blood and/or conjuration are key areas .

[Rainbow]

I agree with Boron that the theme is fine as is, it just takes some creativity to use it well. Unforunately I must admit that I am currently in an MP game playing Tien Chi S&A, and doing bad because of a bad starting location combined with tough indies. This is my fault however, and nothing to do with the theme.

Personallly I think the fire demons are lousy. I know there are some that disagree, but my experience is that the fire demons accuracy is so bad that they can only damage large enemy armies with lots of fodder, and there must be a 1000 other and better ways to obliterate an army like that.

The river demons are much more useful, but not worth the gems, nor the time, which needs to be invested to summon them.

The real strength of the theme are the flying celestial masters. Between all the great and creative dominions players we have, it would be easy to write up an entire strategy guide about this unit alone.

If you worry about the celestrial masters being mind duel fodder, make an astral king pretender and put a flying item on it if it can't fly naturally. Script the pretender to do a couple of mind duels at the start of any battle where you expect enemy astral mages.

/Rainbow

[Boron]

Originally posted by Rainbow:
I agree with Boron that the theme is fine as is, it just takes some creativity to use it well. Unforunately I must admit that I am currently in an MP game playing Tien Chi S&A, and doing bad because of a bad starting location combined with tough indies. This is my fault however, and nothing to do with the theme.

/Rainbow

great ideas too rainbow

tien chis crap national units are rather a benefit than a curse for indep smashing they are just enough but nothing more .
so even if you don't like my horror scales at least taking death 3 sloth 3 is obvious .
so you have an almost as strong pretender as ermor or pan cw but don't need to worry about banishment , dust to dust , wither bones and all the other good undead mass destroyers .
celestial masters are just great .

i would put in a top 5 national mages list with main focus on general usefulness the following :
-demonbred
-arch theurg
-celestial master s&a
-starspawn
-mystic

i should have extended it to top 10

i am not absolutely sure but i guess i would put the celestial master at least on number 3 more likely on number 2 or 1

[Cainehill]

One problem with the "Misfortune 3, Luck 3, Magic 3" plan is that the way Luck works, you're all too likely to lose your lab or temple in the first 10 turns (sometimes the first turn), or have a catastrophe wipe out 40% of your capital's population, etc.

If having a high luck was modified to at least protect against catastrophes in the first 5-10 turns, _then_ it might be viable.

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who despises the concept that a theme is only going to be viable if you totally trash your scales and make an ungodly SC, especially a VQ.

[Boron]

luck is always a issue .

with tien chi you are most luck dependant .
but because of luck 3 you have at least some control .
there are many factors though for which no nation has control . i list some :

-starting location (center,edges...)
-neighbors
-indep province guards
-population of neighbors
-site search ( expect accashic )
-resources of neighbors
-landscape of neighbor provinces ( strat movement for nonflying )

if e.g. ermor starts in the center it is bad for ermor and his neighbors .
ermor will spread his dominion to a larger area than starting in an edgeposition and have more neighbors to deal with .
so more provinces will be corrupted but ermor will have to deal with more attackers early .

if you are dependant on blood randomness can be a pain and a bless .
scenario 1 :
abysia has 5 neighbors :
2 rich 20k+ farmlands
3 poor mountains 5-10k population

so 2 incomegenerating + 3 blood hunt provinces . ideal

scenario 2 :
1 rich farmland but guarded by knights + xbows or special monsters like gargoyles ...
1 5-10k rich mountain
3 0-4k swamps / forests .

1 hard to take province , only 1 adept for blood hunting and 3 rather worthless sites .
so very punishing starting conditions for abysia .

so the only difference is that you have to rely on luck even a bit more with tien chi but you have at least some control by taking luck 3 .
you are only 20-30% more luck dependant than everyone else .

if you look at the opposing scenario : you take or are forced to take misfortune 1-3 .
often you are lucky and get no too bad events in the first 10-15 turns where they harm you most .

but if you get blown up your temple / lab on turn 2 via misfortune event or the plague event which kills 50% population in your capitol you are really handicapped .

edit : lol caine you were faster with the same thoughts although i guess i started writing mine earlier lol

[ July 29, 2004, 13:08: Message edited by: Boron ]